Metallurgy: Expanded

[D&D_Fan]

The goal of this thread to discuss and post new ideas for metals and alloys for D&D, Pathfinder, or any other system.

Here's an example I made.

Coldsteel
Coldsteel is known as the impossible metal to many for one simple reason: Cold iron needs to be forged at lower temperatures than ordinary iron, whereas steel is forged at higher heats than ordinary iron. And for this reason is its existence and exceedingly rare, due to the unnatural means required to forge it. As a metal, it is both stronger and more potent than cold iron or steel are on their own, meaning it's a really good metal to make swords out of, especially against fey and fiends, but that's about it. The only truly interesting thing about it is that it is hard to make. Due to its alloy nature, it cannot be found in nature.

Stats are in progress, but realistically, it wouldn't be that significantly mechanically different from cold iron.

More ideas coming soon.

[D&D_Fan]

Sharp Gold AKA Yellowsteel
This alloy of gold is strong and sharp enough to be useful to make weapons out of, while still being its natural shiny gold color and not tarnishing. Despite the name Yellowsteel, it contains no iron, though it is made with trace amounts of a rare metals that provide it strength.

It is as hard as steel (30 hp/inch, 10 hardness)

Utility: As gold, it doesn't tarnish, and it's non-ferrous making it useful against rust monsters.

[D&D_Fan]

Obliivite
Veins of metal found within the Swamps of Oblivion by definition must be made of a material completely resistant to corrosion of all forms, not least from ooze. Obliivite confers immunity to acid damage, and cannot tarnish at all. Appearance wise, it is a greenish metal, slick, and slightly translucent.

[Greywander]

Not so much creating new materials as giving new meaning to existing ones, but this is something I've looked into before. I never finished a concrete write up, but here's some of what I came up with.

Copper

Copper is one of a few metals that can be found in nature in it's native form (meaning you can dig chunks of pure copper out of the ground, no smelting required). This indicates that copper has a closer connection to elemental Earth than other metals. In alchemy, copper is often associated with Earth as well.

Weapons made of copper do a bit of extra damage to elementals, and bypass resistance and immunity like a magic weapon. Armor made of copper slightly reduces lightning damage taken.

Bronze

Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin. While it isn't as nonreactive as gold, compared to iron it is extremely resistant to corrosion. The Bronze Age was also a time of myths and legends, and heroes slaying fierce monsters. It's not clear if this is because bronze weapons were more effective against monsters, or if something about those mythical deeds somehow made bronze weapons effective against monsters after the fact.

Bronze weapons deal a bit of extra damage against monstrosities, and bypass resistance and immunity like a magic weapon. Bronze armor slightly reduces acid damage taken.

Iron

Iron requires a much hotter flame to smelt than many other metals. This is because iron contains the power of fire, and fire represents technological advancement and mastery over nature.

Iron weapons deal a little extra damage against fey, and bypass resistance and immunity like a magic weapon. Armor made from iron slightly reduces fire damage taken.

Steel

A secret alloy of iron, steel is rumored to be indestructible. Steel embodies the dominion of mankind.

Weapons made of steel deal a bit extra damage to dragons, and bypass resistance and immunity like a magic weapon. Armor made of steel slightly reduces bludgeoning, piercing, and slashing damage taken.

Silver

Silver is associated with the moon, whose shifting phases are in turn associated with shapechangers. Bright light reflecting off of silver becomes moonlight, and a creature struck by a silver weapon is treated as if they were in moonlight for a round. Moonlight has the power to cause shapechangers to lose control over their shapechanging and change forms involuntarily.

Silver weapons can either be silver plating over a stronger core, or pure silver. Silver plated weapons deal a bit of extra damage against shapechangers, but only that extra damage is able to bypass resistance and immunity like a magic weapon. Pure silver weapons can bypass resistance and immunity normally, but are treated as improvised weapons except when attacking a shapechanger. As for armor... I'm not sure, I didn't get that far.

Gold

Gold is associated with the sun, and with immortality. Bright light reflecting off of gold becomes sunlight, and a creature struck with a gold weapon counts as being in sunlight for a round.

Gold plated weapons deal extra damage to undead, but only the extra damage bypasses resistance and immunity. Pure gold weapons bypass resistance and immunity normally, but count as improvised weapons except against undead. I also haven't figured gold armor out yet.

Anyway, that's about as far as I got. After finishing off metals, the next thing would have been to do the same for wood, and maybe ceramics/glasses as well. I guess at some point you could also go over monster parts, such as dragon scale armor or weapons made from dragon fangs.

[Yakk]

True Water

True Water is a translucent solid that is slick to the touch. An ancient civilization used Melora's Pearl to forge water into this nearly indestructible substance, from which they built an entire city in the water; its theft led to the collapse of their civilization into the waves.

Shards of True Water are recovered by divers into the bay where the city sank, and carefully shaped into useful tools or weapons.

[D&D_Fan]

Celebur (already sort of exists, but I explain it here)
Celebur aka 'Burning Silver' is a radioactive fantasy metal akin to uranium or possibly plutonium. It's a glowing green metal that causes sickness. What novelty. Tolkien might have mentioned it.
I don't remember the originals stats are, but for weapons and armor, I say it's weaker than steel at about 15hp/foot^2, and hardness of 5, because it's malleable. Can inflict poison damage and condition that ignores immunity, this might reflect as a permanent level of exhaustion or mummy rot idk.

Depleted Celebur
Celebur that has run out of its magical effects. Still heavy and good for some armor and ammunition. A heavy nonmagical metal. Everyone's favorite.

Celesteel
Effectively fantasy ferrouranium, an ostensibly modern metal, but who cares. Good for whatever ferrouranium is used for. But fantasy. It's as hard as steel but it has celebur wounding/sickness powers. Glows slightly green in the dark.

And, as a side project, I made this abomination...

Powergamium (AKA Miner's Exotic Glowy Red Shadarkeem Ebon Diamond Power Glaucite Absolute)

Spoiler: Warning: Lots of Synnibar resources, unrestricted leaps in logic, and inconsistent Capitalization. Enter at your own risk.

Show

Preface: Reading the original Kyrrad, it's astonishingly meh. Ethril, Orichalcum, and a ruby colored metal from space and it killed a godling? Not even a full god? Yeah, it split enchanted adamantium in half in a single strike, but we can do better than that.

Ingredient one? Exotic Adamony.
Exotic Adamantium exists, it can disintegrate things by hitting them hard enough. Yeah it comes from another dimension as brought by a god, but it has to come from some sort of Exotic Adamant ore. But why not make it into Adamony instead? It's much better that way. This way it can survive everything short of a major god. Ethril is pretty milquetoast in comparison. What does ethril do anyway? Hurt elves?

Ingredient two is going to be something that takes enchantment well and conveys protection to the wielder, because Exotic Adamony won't do that. It won't hold its magic, and it's part antimagic as well. Yadrakk/Yadrann doesn't have this problem though. It can be enchanted, but it's almost impossible to disenchant, though a god helps.

So in the end, we have an Ebon Metal version of Glaucite. But Yadrakk is basically Ebon Iron, so anything that can improve iron should improve it as well. Shadarkeem Power Diamond Yadrann/Tsargo Absolute should do. This is just ebon power iron forged with diamonds and tsargo and refined up into the highest grade, all on the plane of Shadarkeem (the sum of this is getting up to an irreducible +20 bonus I suspect, as well as ignoring armor hp, and is also wholly unbreakable, as well as untouchable by the gods, etc...)

Cinnabryl is curse-resistant metal, but it can still be enchanted and readily eats up enchantments when it becomes Red Steel. The idea here is to create a Glowiesteel capable of differentiating between beneficial and harmful magicks. So it could be teleported with the wielder if the wielder allows it, for example. It could travel through arcane planar gates the same way. It could be enchanted. But it couldn't ever be cursed or disintegrated through magic. Nosiree bob. It's that differentiation that makes it useful. Oddly enough, I don't think Cinnabryl or Glowiesteel are actually ferrous. But now it's even stronger so who cares. Red Glowiesteel. Yay.

And so end result is a dull grey metal that glows red or something, and it is truly untouchable except against Drelthi, but the Drelthi have their Venderant Nalaberong powers that can rewrite reality, and so you can't get better than that. For anything else, it ignores any physical, magical, or godly defense, while being immune to those things itself.

Add in some Miner's Tin for added luck bonus as well because we need that too, can't even fail while bearing a sword or armor made of this.

Is it dumb? Yes, but it's funny. Next time your players open a treasure chest, just give them a dagger made of Powergamium.

[NichG]

Askyrite - Grey green metal that absorbs growth from things around it and radiates shadows of that growth back, much like a form of soul phosphorescence. Each pound present within half a foot of a plant or animal will absorb 10% of that entity's XP income to a maximum of 100%. However, someone using crafted Askyrite items gains a bonus to one scaling class feature associated with the specific item like CL for wands/staves, BAB or sneak attack dice for weapons, saves, max HP for armor, etc - +1 level for 1lbs at 1000xp, +2 levels for 2lbs at 8000xp, +3 levels for 3lbs at 27000xp, and so on. Use of an Askyrite object at any point during a session applies vs all XP gained that session.

Askyrite melted together balances its stored XP pool equally by mass.

Askyrite golems are capable of gaining permanent HD over time, though they must drain XP gain from targets to do so.

Kelock's Alloy - brass doped with crystals that grow in the wake of large-scale Evocations, dissolved in quicksilver. It translates forces applied through it as if the inertial mass of the object immediately touching it were reduced, such that given a mass of alloy mA and a mass of object mO the combined inertial mass acts like mO/(500*mA+mO)+mA. So 1lbs attached to the feet of a 100lbs person makes them act as if they were only 21lbs with regards to forces applied through their feet. This allows rapid explosive movement, bigger jumps, etc.

Damartium - This metal attracts interplanar transitions and conjuration effects in general to it. If such an effect would have manifested within 10ft per pound of metal present, it instead manifests at the location of the metal without regards to range or line of effect limitations. Can be used to make passive teleportation traps, such that all teleports within a building land at a specific point. Sufficiently large natural quantities make teleportation lethal, as distance shunted through solid Damartium counts as 10ft per foot, or as 10ft per 5ft in soils or rock containing large quantities of the raw ore.

When used as a bladed weapon material, grants the wielder a free automatic hit for weapon damage only against anyone whose teleport or summon it catches.

Stranded Corbyrite - this metal naturally takes the form of self-organizing fibers. These fibers learn from motions applied to them repeatedly, copying, guiding, and reinforcing the motion the next time it is repeated. Tools made from this material and then used by master craftsmen convey a bit of their manual expertise to a novice user who inherits the tool, correcting their movements slightly. A hammer swung a thousand times strikes just a bit harder than when it started to see use.

Meriphazm - a metal harvested from Limbo, this material treats illusory effects as if they were solid and had the properties they depict - it can be melted by illusory fire, dissolved by illusory acid, alloyed with illusory gold. The metal sustains any such illusions it becomes entangled with. When worn by someone to sleep, events within their dreams can impact their physical body as if those events were real, though changes fade over the course of a day after removing the metal from their person.

Loyal Tin - not actually tin but a different metal entirely, this substance when incorporated into items tends to make the item 'safe' for it's owner (attunement takes about a day). If the item breaks, it does so in a way that minimizes harmful consequences to the owner. A stove with Loyal Tin mechanisms will shut off airflow to it's fire if a pot of kettle forgotten on the top is about to boil dry and scotch. A knife with a Loyal Tim grip will never slip and cut the user. Among other things, this can remove the risk of applying poison to a weapon untrained.

The effect is a Divination - the Tin is literally sensitive to future weal and woe. As such it can make for excellent augury materials, though the Tin always favors weal over truth.

[D&D_Fan]

Living Metal
A presently near-unique alloy that endowed with a spark of life and can reshape itself at will. While it may bear some similarities to some iron/tsargo alloys and black orichalcum, it can reshape itself much like how mold metal can be reshaped by use of transmutation magic. It can reshape itself in such a way that it will be more potent or resist more damage. That is, if it feels like aiding whoever wields it. In order to make use of a living metal weapon, it's necessary to be on good terms with it.
A living metal weapon can turn into any weapon or typical item and can be used to make objects such as bows and crossbows that ordinarily could not be made of metal. Most living metals don't like being used as projectiles and will be horrid as such. For most weapon uses, living metal will start as a +1, but can be increased up to a +5 or higher through training.
Living metal can be reshaped into some magic items, such as a rope of climbing or a rope of entanglement, but has increased hardness and hp.
If damaged, the rope can regenerate over a short rest. When resting, living metal tends to melt into a puddle, but much like an elven trance, it isn't really asleep.
It's pretty hard to quantify though, DM has final say in a lot of it because of this.

[D&D_Fan]

Self-Heating Metal AKA Seheme
This silvery metal is slightly chrome and slightly dull, very slick and chalky. It gives off constant heat without any clear source of energy. It is only found in bricks of dimension 10cm x 6cm x 8cm in a ancient ruins. If shattered or disintegrated, the effects will be weakened, but if melted down, the pieces will continue to function. Despite giving off constant heat, it melts at a very low temperature for metal. It is immune to the effects of spells such as heat metal and chill metal.

Gourmite
This glistening brown metalloid ore has no magical properties. It is known to be particularly delicious to creatures that consume metal or other earthen materials such as Rust Monsters or Xorn. It isn't edible to anything else though; In fact, it's highly toxic and has use as a deadly poison for all other creatures.

[D&D_Fan]

Misc. Metal Notes

Given that they exist IRL, amalgams between mercury and other metals such as silver, tin, zinc, copper, and gold should exist. Useful for metal extraction and dentistry I suppose.

Strongest IRL alloy is a sort of gold-titanium alloy but it could also have an ebon metal form, since aurebony and black titanium exist (would be pretty useful against magic, psionics, and fire, and very good too, probably an innate +40% bonus)

Tungsten also exist in D&D, that's a possibility, tungsten, tungsten carbide, etc...

a metal that is a Non-Newtonian fluid at room temperature would be funny.

Bonus metal:

Quickmur
A liquid metal similar to ogamur, making it a Boger fluid, or a constant viscosity elastic fluid. Not sure what the utility would be.

[NichG]

Mercury already kind of does this, but a metal that really likes to alloy with anything on contact would be useful. With mercury it basically acts to dissolve metals because the alloys are often liquid at room temperature, but you could have a sort of 'stick metal' that basically solidly fuses to any other metallic surface you touch it to.

[D&D_Fan]

Fantasy Metals from Other Games not adapted to D&D (yet)
Lysaughton, Mcgrail, Platnite, Catoetine, Elrodnite, Inniculmoid, Boernerine, Neurolite, Fabrinine, all of those have been adapted I'm sure. That's just from Gemstone III. But there are other metals that aren't given the same treatment. So I am listing them here.

Palladium - Real Life Metal (but Fantasy-ized
A rare silvery metal. Has the same properties of silver and cold iron. Especially favored by paladins. Because palladium sounds like paladin. Real clever.

Hihi'irokane
Scarletite. Harder than diamond, immune to rust, generates its own warmth, conducts spiritual energy, etc... Hihi'irokane does it all. According to some, it's a rare variant of Orichalcum. East meets west. I guess.

Tilkal - Tolkien Metal
Kyrrad might be the strongest metal that can be crafted by mortal hands. But it's not the strongest that can be crafted by a god. It can only be made by a god of blacksmiths and it is by definition and infinity+1 metal.

Octiron - Pratchett Metal
Antimagic and magic at the same time. You can use it to make magic items and to contain magic items. It's hard, dense, dark, dull. When struck, it produces silence.

Sorortanium - Pratchett Metal
The best metal for armor, this metal will perfectly reflect any impact against it. Like Vibranium before Vibranium was a thing. Can resist a good amount of heat. May still be able to be damaged by other means though, otherwise it probably wouldn't be workable.

Blue Iron - Talislanta and World Tree Metals Combined
Just as hard as iron, but it weights 1/8th the weight, or eight times as heavy. What determines the weight? Who knows. I just saw there was one blue iron that was lighter than iron and one that was heavier and I thought "Huh, that's funny." and I combined the two. It's a very strange material now.

...

If it was smelted with carbon, would it make blue steel? [insert obligatory Zoolander reference]

Naquadah - Stargate Metal
An "extremely tough and chemically inert room-temperature superconductor" a quartzlike material. It's fantasy property allows it to enhance energy. Probably not useful in a fantasy setting, but when combined with explosives, it magnifies their power greatly. Generators can be made from it. There are several isotopes and variants like liquid version and Naquadriah, they aren't that important though.

Trinium - Stargate Metal
Titanium on steroids, but also not very interesting to be used as a fantasy metal, so I will leave this entry short.

Neutronium - Hypothetical Metal
Why, for any reason, would you make a sword out of pure neutrons? It would be completely chemically inert, it would be colorless, and it would be a gas at room temperature. Oh, and extremely radioactive. To get around all of these, you would need to use magical enchantments to force it under a great amount of pressure and curb its degeration.
It's ~ 2,080,932,020,000,000 lbs per cubic inch. Just a tad heavier than pelleum (8lbs/inch^3)

Mythical Mercury Variants

Red Mercury
Radioactive metal, probably liquid at room temperature, can be used to make unmatched compact atomic weaponry. But it isn't real.

Invisible Hard Mercury
I think the name is a pretty good indicator of what it does. It's used to make Rings of Invisibility. Of course.

Concept: Antimagic Metals
A weak antimagic field emitting metals will generate an antimagic field of 1.25 feet per pound of metal.
A medium antimagic field emitting metal will generate an antimagic field of 2.5 feet per pound of metal.
A strong antimagic field emitting metal will generate an antimagic field of 5 feet per pound of metal.
When most antimagic metals are shaped into containers or armor, the field will be directed inwards providing protection from magic to objects within them but not outside them.
An antimagic contact metal will cause all objects it touches to lose magic while contact is maintained.
A magic-proof metal has no antimagic field but can't be affecte by magic nonetheless.
A magic resistance grade can be applied to any metal to give a spell level that that item can ignore. Once the level of the spell exceeds the M.R.G. the item is affected.
Certain treatments and enchantments can change this M.R.G.

Notes:
All of these can be used in fantasy settings where they were never intended to be used, and that can be fun.

Note: A longsword is ~14.25 cubic inches in D&D 3.5e

Name	Hardness	Weight (lbs/inch2)	Weight per longsword	Special traits
Steel	10	0.28	4	None
Palladium	7	0.43	TBA	None
Paladinum (Fantasified Palladium)	10	0.28	4	Cold, Silvered, Holy
Iron, Cold Iron	10	0.28	4	Cold (cold iron only)
Realistic Iron	6	0.28	4	Cold (cold iron only)
Orichalcum	18	0.41	5.8	Something idk
Hihi'irokane	27	0.41	5.8	Hot, Spiritual
Gold	4	0.70	10.9	Gilded
Celebur (regular & depleted)	9	0.69	TBA	Radiant (not when depleted)
Celesteel	10	0.28	4	Radiant
Neutronium	10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000	2,080,932,020,000,000	29,341,141,500,000,000	I don't know, but given that it's a non-insignificant fraction of the weight of the moon, it would do something.
TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA
TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA	TBA

[D&D_Fan]

Galvorn - Tolkien
A lost dark elf metal. While it could be interpreted as adamantine or ethril, it could also be its own thing. The knowledge of how to make it is lost. But it is black in color, and stronger than mithril.

Stygium - Discworld
Yet another black metal, it gets very, very hot in sunlight. It's like Rosantium, except instead of storing light, it stores heat. It's literally supposed to be a shady edgelord metal. Embrace the edge.

Runite - Runescape
A cyan metal that will not degrade over time. It's an interesting implication. Can it be dented or rust to lower its quality? Obviously not. But what about elemental decay and nuclear bombardment? Chemical damage? Gravity and crushing? Heat and melting? Electrical damage? Who knows.

Miscellaneous metals that already exist but that nobody ever remembers
Obdurite (more durable than adamant, but not actually better.), Telstang (the trusty gnome metal!), Hell Iron (iron from hell), Hizagkuur (metal/clay that generates electricity!), Antine (return to where it was before), Arinyark (absorbs magic), Wetznite (ranged attacks w/ melee weapons), Davistone (ignored by magical effects), etc...

Original Creations:

Foldite
A white lusterless metal that can be made into sheets and folded like origami hut hundreds or thousands of times to make armor and weapons of great quality. Origami metal. Hell yeah.

Rotite
A weak nonmagnetic brown dull metal of exceedingly poor quality. It's also super stable to the point where all other metals are metastable in comparison. When it comes in contact with most metal (non-enchanted or super magical), it will be converted into Rotite.

[D&D_Fan]

What can you make out of metal? Alloys.

Bowmetal AKA Fjadmurmal AKA Thrimmethor (AKA whatever any dwarf language translator spits out for 'bow metal')
While most metals are too heavy and inelastic, the right alloy of metals would be a great bow material. Bowmetal would need to be part ogamur for it's elastic properties, but also part light metal. For the sake of the argument, that light metal is mithril, and so it would probably combine the recipe for mithral with ogamur. It would no doubt be seen in the hands of the rare dwarf bowdwarf.

Telstandt
Combining the ferromagnetic property of adamant ore with the nonmagnetic property of telstang alloy, a recipe can be devised to make a metal that is magnetically monopolar. But for what use? It can make some force fields/cages against magnetic effect. Yippee! That, and it's one solid metal due to being part adamant, so much so that the magnetic properties are an afterthought.

Slow Iron
Using the metal from melted down Immovable Rods diluted with regular, unenchanted metal, an alloy that's only partially immovable can be made, which is slower to fall and swing around, and can't accelerate rapidly, but is also quite difficult to decelerate, making it useful as a weapon, since if accelerated fast enough, nearly nothing can stop it.

[D&D_Fan]

More Alloys:

Oddcopper
This alloy of copper is infused with approx. 5% neurolite and gains strange properties as a result. It is a spectacular superconductor at room temperature, except that it conducts the wrong energy each time and reacts in an unexpected way to chemicals. For example, if a warrior were to wear a set of oddcopper armor and was struck by a fireball, rather than being burned, she might be electrocuted by a surge of sparks or deafened by an ear-piercing screech. When brought into a cold tundra, an oddcopper sword might melt or glow. A strong acid might cause an oddcopper ring to shatter or become cold to the touch. It's impossible to predict how its conduction will be transmutated. Interesting enough, oddcopper is completely immutable to any magical tampering, armor made of oddcopper, while of dubious use, does confer this protection. When brought into a sufficiently strong gravitational or magnetic field, oddcopper has a 50% chance of instantly destroying itself, oftentimes quite violently, through decay or by tearing itself apart.

TBA
TBA

[Deepbluediver]

Some of these are interesting from a narrative perspective, and might make for a neat set of effects if you were writing a story and were the author in complete control of the narrative*, but that's not what happens in a game. You have to balance your desire for unique effects against complexity and things that the players will actually want to use. If you give one of your players a really neat sword that drags the game to a grinding halt every 5 minutes because you need to roll on 3 different tables and consult 2 flow-charts to determine it's effect on an attack, it's not a net benefit (for most groups).
*the Mistborn series feels like it would be a fantastic setting for this, if you were running that kind of homebrewed world, for example

For now, I might stick with various established fanstasy-metals or real-world substances until you nail down exactly what you want to do with those, and then move on to inventing more fantastic substances. You can also adjust other rules to make things more attractive. For example, in my setting everything has a limit to how much enchanting it can take, with iron and steel being middling, meaning that if you want to max our your enchantments, then you need to seek out special materials.
As a comparison, here's a short rundown of some of the things I do with metals and other materials for weapons and armor in my homebrewed setting.

Wood/Stone- unrefined or crude materials, make the poorest weapons with the lowest enchanting cap

Iron/Steel- most common material (usually meaning the cheapest for a decent effect) with a moderate enchanting cap

Bronze- due to copper being a semi-precious metal, has a higher enchanting cap than iron/steel which explains why this material is still in use, despite IRL iron replacing bronze almost as soon as cultures had the tech and know-how to smelt it

Mithril- lighter than steel; for armor gives a higher max-dex boost and lower ACP, and for weapons gives a bonus to +hit; also has a higher enchanting cap

Adamantine- harder than steel, which boosts the damage of piercing and slashing weapons (finer edge, smaller point, etc); has the second-highest enchanting cap in the game. For armor provides extra damage reduction.

Darkwood/Ironwood- weapons made of wood but better than normal wood, lol; mainly used by Druids or anyone who doesn't like metal; higher enchanting cap than iron/steel due to being special. Can't be used for slashing weapons (or rather it can be but damage is downgraded to non-lethal, so isn't).

Bone- same as Darkwood, mostly; existing because players wearing bone-armor or wielding skull-headed axes are cool

Cold Iron/Alchemical Silver- exist mostly due to legacy rules; could due extra damage or negate fast-healing, etc, to certain kinds of creatures but generally overly specific, IMO. Could be made more useful with additional rules about creature-types; similar to your rules about extra damage to elementals.

Krystal (yes with a "k")- has the highest enchanting limit in the game, also cheaper to enchant than normal; can't be used for piercing weapons or it risks shattering

Dragonhide- special material for armor; provides energy resistance instead of DR when used.

Spellweave- special material for armor; basically the same as Krystal- cheaper and easier to enchant


This is just what I do, and I'm always on the looking for interesting new things to do with existing material. I may pillage your list for ideas in that regard; I particularly like the idea of materials that do innate elemental damage.

Finally, an idea- one thing I haven't seen on your list(s) (I think) is orichalcum, if you're looking for real-world names or substances to use for inspiration.

[D&D_Fan]

Finally, an idea- one thing I haven't seen on your list(s) (I think) is orichalcum, if you're looking for real-world names or substances to use for inspiration.

Orichalcum (my fantasy take on it)
A heavy, malleable elemental metal, room temperature superconductor, and with a distinct red-orange color. Indestructible when exposed to electricity, such as being struck by lightning. Could theoretically be tempered in the blood of a lightning-breathing dragon to make it permanently indestructible. It cannot be pieced by Platnite, but only because of how it conducts electricity.

Grade 0: No bonus
Grade 1: +3 to hit, +7 damage
Grade 2: +4 to hit, +9 damage

All Orichalcum not exposed to electricity is Grade 0.

New Variants of Orichalcum
Orichalcum, Exotic - Acts in reverse, vulnerable to lightning.
Orichalcum, Alchemical - This isn't very useful, as nothing is weak to Orichalcum.
Orichalcum, Ivory - Has a deathly aura, but it does cloak life signs with limited use. I'll write more on The Ivory Metals later.

[Greywander]

In a similar vein (pun intended) to orichalcum, there's also Corinthian bronze, hepatizon, and/or black bronze. We don't have any surviving examples, so there's a lot we don't know about these. According to Pliny the Elder, hepatizon was second most valuable bronze after Corinthian bronze, so these might have been similar but distinct alloys. It's suspected that they are alloys of copper and either gold or silver or both, and would have had a dark purplish color. There's also the similar shakudo, a Japanese alloy of copper and gold with a dark blue color, as well as shibuichi, an alloy that is 3 parts copper and 1 part silver.

If we're running with the idea of orichalcum as "advanced copper" and hepatizon as "advanced bronze", then I kind of like the idea of steel as "advanced iron". Steel is a mundane metal to us nowadays, but would have seemed like a mythical unbreakable metal when first discovered. Of course, in medieval times they were very aware it wasn't unbreakable and would often carry spare weapons just in case, but it was leaps and bounds more durable than other materials at that point in time. Then again, if steel is "advanced iron", why wouldn't bronze be "advanced copper"? Perhaps thokcha, "thunderbolt" iron, or meteorite iron, would be more suited as an "advanced iron", and steel would be its own thing.

As a side note, I feel like aluminum and titanium would both be fairly mythical metals, if fantasy worlds had the means to process them.

[D&D_Fan]

As a side note, I feel like aluminum and titanium would both be fairly mythical metals, if fantasy worlds had the means to process them.

I think they already are. Titanium already has a few Fantasy variants. Sometimes it's called durang, at least in some stories, though that's a misconception, since durang is a ferrous alloy. Point is, it blocks magic and psionics and it is high-grade indestructible, it can only be forged once. The temperature to forge it is actually fairly low, but the chemical change makes it indestructible and gives it special properties, I guess. I'm compositing lore here. It's just a super-metal, but it's very rare because a lot of metals are. Other weird lore bits: Non-magnetic, black color sometimes, only found where there isn't any air, like the plane of earth.

Aluminium is just like Mithril, it's a very light metal. It probably gets used more for jewelry, since it's only slightly harder than magnesium.

Not going to make a new post, but I wanted to add a mention of Tectorite from LOTR series.

It's a green metal that increases in durability when alloyed with other metals.
I would double the hardness and HP/inch for all metals alloyed with Tectorite.
Tecsteel would be about as good as adamantine.

[D&D_Fan]

Special Feature:
Forgotten Steel and Mithrarian. I legit do not know where FS comes from, though Mithrarian is from Tolkien, but I'll do my best to adapt and add to them.

Forgotten Steel
I would personally write weapons made of this as an enhanced variant of Shocking Burst weapons, with the difference being in that they deal force damage instead of lightning. Of note as well is that FS is not a ferrous metal, despite its name, though it is just as hard and has the same amount of HP per cubic inch.

The original version could fire an energy beam, and that's cool and all, but a level 1 warlock in 5e can do the same thing and doesn't even need to drain their Constitution points to do so.

Alchemical Mithrarian
This treatment, much like Alchemical Silver, augments the capabilities of the treated metal. In this case, it provides weightlessness to the item treated. This is very useful for swords, arrows, and armor. Not that great for bludgeoning weapons, but we can't be picky, can we? All AM-treated items will float as if gravity did not affect them at all. An AM-treated arrow will fly straight without dropping (though air resistance or obstacles will prevent it from flying off into the far reaches of space)

[D&D_Fan]

Forgotten Steel Part 2 (with special mention of Arandur and Power Iron)

Let's look at what it can do in its original writing. A player can channel 1 point of CON into the metal to fire a beam dealing 1d10 force damage so long as the metal is a 1 foot wand approximately 1/2 inch in diameter. This is about 2.35 cubic inches. It also doubles magical and mutational energies through it. (The expended CON is restored after a short rest, ostensibly)

This is all cool. What happens if you make a staff out of it? Well, a Bo staff, for example, is typically 6 feet tall and 1 inch in diameter. Let's say the actual forgotten steel part of the staff is the same diameter as the wand. 14.14 cubic inches. And the energy doesn't double since it's all the same object, it just adds. That's still 6d10 damage every round for several rounds, or at least until CON runs low.

But if an Amulet of Health provides a CON bonus of +2, +4, or +6, one affixed to a Forgotten Steel Staff would supply it with a 'magazine' of up to 6 shots at no detriment to the wielder. A Pink Ioun stone would have the same effect.
Power Iron also has a similar effect. An ounce of Power Iron can hold a projected point of CON.

The core of the staff will be Power Iron for this purpose. 4 Additional reserve points of CON can be stored in the staff. A staff with a golden button could hold between 6 and 10 shots in it. Any shots beyond that will still draw from the wielder's life force. It's just the perfect Goa'uld staff weapon expy for D&D, The Forgotten Steel / Power Iron / Amulet of Health Staff.

Shorter and longer staves could be made, but most would be like the one described above. Perhaps they could be reinforced with some other metal like Tectorite for added durability, because as it stands they would be merely as durable as average steel.

Armor against such a weapon would likely be constructed of Arandur, a Gnomish metal that conveys some resistance to magical force damage. Good stuff.

Adding a crystal tip to the staff could augment damage types and effects. A Wulfenite, Dioptase, Disthene, Fire Opal, or Thuparlial tip would deal fire damage and ignite targets. Black Opal or Orl could provide an explosion on impact. Saganite and Euclase would do both. Epidote and Samarskite would deal extra damage to undead. An Amber tip would convert damage to lightning, and Tourmaline would make it even more lightning bolt-esque. Corstal, Heliodor, Sunstone, Topaz, and Mellochrysos would convert damage to radiant. Garnet, Jargoon, and Ziose would provide a flat damage boost to the staff. Kornerupine would deal sonic, Rainbow Obsidian for Prismatic effects, etc...
And that's barely scratching the surface. A more comprehensive list can be found here.

Forgotten Energy Staff
This staff is 6 feet long, made of an unknown silvery metal. It is adorned with a golden button and a tip made of polished jargoon.
Using an action to aim the staff and press the button, the staff fire a ray with a range of 60 feet. It is a magical ranged touch attack that affects a single target without saving throw and hits unneringly. It deals 6d10+1 damage to a target with a range of 120 feet. Using the staff in this way expends 1 charge. The staff has 6/8/10 charges. It can be used after all charges are expended, at the cost of a point of Constitution per use. Constitution expended this way is regained after a short rest. Targets slain by the staff's ranged attack are torn asunder by magical force and reduced to dust. If used as a melee weapon, it is identical to a medium-sized quarterstaff, though the damage dealt is still considered magical, it is bludgeoning.

Spoiler: Variant Vers.

Show

Type: Exotic Melee/Ranged Weapon
Size: Medium
Weight: 8lbs
Hardness: 10

Ranged:
Damage: 6d10+1
Damage Type: N/A
Range Increment: 120ft.
Critical: N/A
Ammuntion: Special

Melee:
Damage: 1d6
Damage Type: Bludgeoning
Critical: x2

[D&D_Fan]

If you don't want to hear more about my genius metal laser staff, skip this

Spoiler: Improved Energy Staff Weapon blueprints (probably waaaay too unbalanced to be used)

Show

Base Metal: Alloy of Exotic Adamant and Forgotten Steel with Quartz Crystal, and trace amounts of Ebon Metals and Megametal.

Power Source: Power Iron Absolute, this stuff would have a stupid amount of charges in it. You could just stick a one ounce thing on the end and forget about it for the rest of the campaign. Well, maybe. We'll get back to that.

*Disintegration beams from the weapon would act like so:

Medium-sized
Ranged Magical Exotic Weapon
Range Increment: 100 feet + 10 feet per foot of the length of the staff (average 160ft)
Untyped Damage

You must make a successful ranged weapon attack to hit a target, the attack is an instantaneous ray. Any creature struck by the ray takes 2d6 points of damage per foot of the length of the staff (average 12d6). Any creature reduced to 0 or fewer hit points by the staff is entirely disintegrated, leaving behind only a trace of fine dust. A disintegrated creature’s equipment is unaffected.



When used as a melee weapon:

Medium-sized
Melee Magical Simple Weapon
Range: Melee
Bludgeoning Damage

2d6 Damage

Other Notes:
The staff itself and all components would be nigh-unbreakable. This weapon ignores magical protection from enchanted armor and protective spells. The staff is tipped with a white amethyst focusing crystal, causing the rays fired from it to shriek and scream as they fly past. Gotta up that terror factor. While most staves have hundreds of shots remaining, if a party finds one that is nearly depleted or missing its power cell, they can channel a point of Constitution into the staff to recharge it for one shot. If they expend all of their points in Constitution, they will fall unconscious. The lost Constitution is regained after a long rest. This process is quite painful.

[D&D_Fan]

Chronitite
An elemental metal of time. I think its time warping properties could be taken great use from in a weapon: Life stealing. This exists in 3.5e and we can see it in this quick list of things that do it:

• Aging Touch (Spell)
• Bestow Curse (Spell)
• Phane (Monster)
• Putrefication (Spell)
• Suel Lich (Monster)
• Temporal Jolt (Spell)
• Time Dragon (Monster)

Only problem is that they all do it slightly differently. So I can make my own version.

Basically speaking, prolonged exposure to (or a good strike from) Chronitite will reduce a targets ability scores by 1 point each, because every knows that old people (let's say, 40+) are weak, slow, sickly, ugly, zombie-like, and unwise. That was a joke. Don't sue me. I'm actually referring to 30+ instead. So yeah the metal will also force the target up an age category, because that's also a measurement that exists. By the last age category, venerable, I think, the target just takes incredible damage from each strike. It also rusts armor, removing HP from it with every hit, and just generally breaks a lot of things both in game and from a mechanics standpoint.

But when enchanted as armor, it can easily have an opposite effect. Permanent time shield spell, or just be like a druid and be immune to aging effects.

It's fundamentally a metal that warps the flow of time around it. Fun stuff.

Alternate abilities you can give to Chronitite might be natural 'Vorpal Sword' effect in which instead of decapitating targets, it just ages them to feebleness.

[D&D_Fan]

Unmetal
The elemental metal of the quasi-elemental plane of vacuum. It's the absence of metal. It's weightless, nonmagnetic, but also unbreakable. When it comes into contact with metal, the universe short-circuits and a hole in the planes is torn open creating a vacuum implosion. It also just... can't exist in the plane of vacuum itself. A vacuum in a vacuum is a double negative. Except it's just a single negative. Think like language where you can say "I ain't never seen no purple zebra." And it just means "I really really have not seen a purple zebra."
To really understand why this 'sword made of the absence of sword and also antimatter' exists, it's because it's really just a parody.

Honorable Metal Mention: Metals that phase through other metals.
Platnite. Inubrix. Those are the only two I know about. Zardazil and Soul Steel do the opposite, they ignore flesh but slice through metal.
I bet you thought unmetal would do the same. It doesn't for reasons of that it's been done before, and because unmetal is just as weird and icky in practice.
Point is, these metals are weird in practice, but in the OG way.

Problem 1: If you tip an arrow with it, the arrowhead will go through armor, but the wooden shaft of the arrow will be the thing that actually strikes the armor. A wooden arrowhead is unlikely to pass through most truly durable metal. So the person struck by the arrow gets a shallow wound from an arrowhead and the arrow bounces of the armor. Bullets could still work maybe. Except against kevlar-like materials, since they aren't metal. Then again: So do regular bullets.

Problem 2: Armor made of this metal is useless, because almost every weapon will ignore the armor. Maybe against claws and fangs it would be good. But not every fight will be against animals.

Problem 3: Mass stuff. If you have a coin made of [insert phasing metal] and one made of ordinary metal, you could force them into the same physical space. Can that increase the durability? Does it do anything?

Problem 2.5: Wearing two suits of armor overlapping with one another would be possible. And the weight isn't a problem because some very light metals exist.

It just opens up too many questions.

Problem 3: Alloys? Can alloys of these metals exist? Not with other metals by conventional means, surely. But what happens if you use magic to bond the metals together? Does it just fall apart at a molecular level? Sounds dangerous. Does it cease to be? Crumble to dust? Again, too many problems.

Of course, for some DMs, these are just mechanical holes to fill.

My solution is:

1 - Almost Wholly Useless, But bullets without wood in them totally work against metal armor.
2 - Partially Useless
2.5 - Works for some metals. I call it Simultaneous Metal Armor (It's just regular armor against metal weapons, and 2x armor against nonmetal weapons. Can't go wrong with that.)
3 - I say magical nuke. Once the magic ends, it rips itself apart and explodes.

[Breccia]

Problem 3: Mass stuff. If you have a coin made of [insert phasing metal] and one made of ordinary metal, you could force them into the same physical space. Can that increase the durability? Does it do anything?

Problem 2.5: Wearing two suits of armor overlapping with one another would be possible. And the weight isn't a problem because some very light metals exist.

My solution: 10% salt.

My solution to this problem: the phasing, like other D&D effects, ends at the end of its turn, after which it's squeezed out. This means swords can cleave through metal armor but you can't wear two suits of metal armor, and can't hide one coin in another coin for more than a few seconds.

[sandmote]

Zardazil and Soul Steel do the opposite, they ignore flesh but slice through metal.
...
Problem 2.5: Wearing two suits of armor overlapping with one another would be possible. And the weight isn't a problem because some very light metals exist.
...
2.5 - Works for some metals. I call it Simultaneous Metal Armor (It's just regular armor against metal weapons, and 2x armor against nonmetal weapons. Can't go wrong with that.)

I like this idea for armor. Take some creatures that fight with natural weapons, and they hand out this armor to their underlings. The armor is useful against metal (and therefore against other humanoids) but provides no benefit to anyone attempting to betray the creatures in question.

[D&D_Fan]

Continued:

Mixing Phasing Metals with Nonmetals
This kind of mix is useless, it would negate the initial property. If it's not pure, it will get stuck on impurities.

Mixing Different Phasing Metals with Each Other
This just, probably doesn't work. They'll ignore each other as much as they ignore other metals.

Can they be used to save space in machinery?
Totally. It will still be massive, but you can totally have machines inside machines (inside machines). Gears going through gears and cables and pistons, etc...

Do other phasing materials exist?

Phase Crystals
Crystals that phase through other crystals.

Phasewood
Wood that totally ignores other wood and vegetable matter.

Phasing Stones
Isn't this just unrefined versions of phasing metals?

Anyway, just some other things.

[D&D_Fan]

Ironwood. A famous fantasy trope.
Elves only use wood weapons and tools, because their wood is as strong as iron.

Today, I present the opposite:

Woodmetal
A metal as brittle as wood, and much heavier. Prone to bending and splintering easily. Very low melting point, bursts into flames first. It's totally useless, maybe you could make a really heavy bow out of it. Yay!

Veins of it are not too common, but not rare. Nobody makes stuff out of it, except dwarves, since dwarves live underground and they need wood to build with too. No wonder dwarves have axes, they need them to mine woodmetal with.

[D&D_Fan]

I like this idea for armor. Take some creatures that fight with natural weapons, and they hand out this armor to their underlings. The armor is useful against metal (and therefore against other humanoids) but provides no benefit to anyone attempting to betray the creatures in question.

They way Zardazil works, it will only ignore one creature, the first creature it wounds, so it can be made very precise to only ignore one creature. A beholder who equips its minions with Zardazil-alloyed adamantium armor and weapons that touch its own blood will always have a contingency against adventurers who steal their minions' armor or weapons, since the metal cannot harm the beholder, and its eye rays and bites will ignore the armor. It also means its minions are less likely to talk back to it.

It's absolutely something a beholder would do lol.

[brian 333]

From AD&D: Glassteel

Glass converted to steel by a spell.